Nespresso - Design Contest

Nespresso’s 2005 Design Contest aimed at imagining the future of coffee rituals, yielded gems like the Nespresso InCar coffee machine and the Nespresso Chipcard (which stores coffee preferences for registered individuals, and when inserted into a vending machine, communicates with a central database to brew a personalised cup of coffee). Pictures of the winning concepts can be found at gizmag.co.uk/go/5493/gallery. (trendwatching.com)

Philips - Live Simplicity - Leadusers.nl

Tapping into the minds and ideas of crowds to source knowledge on trends and future developments is an important aspect of crowdsourcing, an aspect which we call sensing. How can one effectivily sense new demands and opportunities?

Philips for example, has launched two sensing platforms: Lead Users and Live Simplicity. Philips is a dutch multinational, offering technology products for lifestyle and healthcare sectors. On Leadusers.nl (dutch website) they conducted studies with lead users on specific topics, like video technology and sleep quality. The initiative was thus aimed at gaining knowledge on the specific subjects as well as sensing new product demands and opportunities.

The new Live Simplicity website is partly a marketing instrument to promote Philips’ Sense and Simplicity slogan, but definititely also a tool to acquire knowledge on what people think in Philips-relevant areas of life. The sensing platform facilitates discussions in 6 areas (Business, Communication, General, Internet & Technology, Lifestyle & Social, and Wellness). Each discussion starts with a short description and two contrasting viewpoints (A and B). Visitors are invited either to vote for a viewpoint, or register as contributor and write a comment. The initiators also thought of incentives for contributors and have set up a rating/reward system. Each contributer has a rating, shown as an icon. This is calculated based on how many times that contributer has made a point and had others agree or disagree with it. Each posting has an agree/disagree button next to it, and the combined results of these are displayed in the Rating. So contributors can develop themselves as respected members of the site. It must be said, although one may expect otherwise, the reactions and opinions on the platform are indeed of high quality. In addition, high-rating contributers are often selected to contribute to certain discussions. Philips has also developed a visual tracker, which enables contributors to track their favorite topics from their desktop. (openinnovators.net)

Muji-Award

Stylish Japanese purveyor of all things minimalist Muji is also launching an international design competition, which is about to start, well, now. Calling on the entire GLOBAL BRAIN, Muji’s first theme is “SUMI”, (corner / edge / end). From the site’s briefing: “The objective is not to design something that is placed in the middle of the room, but towards the edges, not at the centre and not directly around the centre; you should look for somewhere that evades the eye, send us an object designed for that place, and name it as you wish. We are not asking for any particular genre, it could be anything from furniture, stationery and office equipment, to everyday items.” Just like aforementioned Nespresso, winners will be announced at the Milan Salone. (trendwatching.com)